5 new must-have photo editing apps

While Hipstamatic's Oggl started as a social network, it has evolved into one of the best photo editing tools for Windows Phone 8.

Apps come and go, but every once in a while, a newcomer will jump on the scene and make you shake up your mobile photography routine. Over the past few weeks, a number of photo editing apps have emerged on every mobile platform and a few have the potential to change our mobile photography workflow.

Now that Apple lets you put a ton of apps in one folder, I rank my photography apps based on which page they are on in that folder. While it started on page 4, Diptic PDQ quickly climbed the ranks and it is now on page #1. Way easier to use than the original Diptic, Diptic PDQ is a quick way to create collages and apply adjustable filters all from the same application.

Hipstamatic's filters and lenses make Oggl one of the best editing apps for Windows Phone 8.

Oggl has been around for a while. Launched on Windows Phone 8 in July, it has finally hit its stride for a lot of users after a series of updates fixed the bugs that were crippling the app on some devices. Now, Windows Phone 8 photographers can enjoy all of the "lenses" and "films" that iPhone photographers have loved for years. And, as an added bonus, its sharing feature offers Instagram uploading even though Instagram still doesn't have an official Windows Phone 8 application. The app is also available for iPhone.

Repix for Android offers basic photo editing tools like brightness control as well as a huge selection of brushes for more detailed editing.

While it may have originated on iOS, Repix seems to have hit its stride on Android. Repix utilizes the Samsung S Pen to provide pressure-sensitive brushes for extremely detailed editing with its 30 different brushes. Even if you don't use a Galaxy Note, Repix offers other cool features to lure you away from Photoshop Touch. It's got the basics, like brightness, contrast and color temperature control, but its brushes really set it apart from other free Android apps.

LazyLens lets you pick from multiple filters as well as apply brightness adjustments and tilt-shift effects.

Sometimes, you just want to make yourself a White Russian, put on your favorite robe and take a photo of the rug that ties the whole room together. For those moments, there is a new app for Windows Phone 8: LazyLens. The app does exactly what you need from a free one-stop smartphone photography app and nothing more. You can add filters, perform basic lighting adjustments and if you want to get crazy, you can even apply a tilt shift effect. In just a couple weeks, LazyLens has earned a near perfect score from its over 1,700 Windows Phone 8 Store customers. But that's just like, their opinion, man.

If you're like me, you're getting sick of Snapseed's filter package. I keep moving from different apps to try to find a fresh look for my photos while still maintaining control. And while Vintique doesn't have the extremely detailed exposure control that Snapseed offers, it does a pretty good job with the filters. You can adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation and tint of your photos as well as choose from 54 different customizable filters. And while the Vintique team may still be working out a few kinks, this app is one of the easier and more professional customizable filter apps for Android.

i am always surprised at the negativity in the comments section of these reviews. i am guessing that no one here post processes their DSLR images? really?

these are quick and dirty cheap tools for cheap cameras (cell phones). they allow us to take a picture, adjust it to capture the feeling of the scene and post it without having to go home and down load the image to our computer.

to those of you who think this stuff looks like cr*p you should go back and scan some of your old film images. you will be a little humbler about how far cellphone photography has come.

Other than the occasional sepia effect, which itself can get very old & overdone, I'm just not feeling this "vintage" trend of making shots look like they were taken with a Fisher Price camera. What's wrong with a "straight up" shot with just a tinge of color added? This trend is just a silly fad, just like other ones like the family portrait shots of the family walking away from the camera holding hands at a railroad track, & the baby shots having 80,000 "props" in the photo. They're "click a preset" gimmicks for those who just too lazy to do things like getting the white balance correct and the eyelashes in focus etc, a "quickie" for making a so-called "boring" shot suddenly look new.

But I must give DPreview credit for one thing here--at least this article didn't have the usual "next, next, next, next, next" layout which I completely despise, they have everything on 1 single page once again, as they ought to. That's MUCH better.

with my d600 i have a ton of options for getting the photo i want that best illustrates the scene as i see it. my iphone doenst have most of those options. instead i have to do more post processing to capture the feeling of the scene. it is a cheap tool for a cheap camera.

put another way it is still a heck of a lot better than my old polaroid.

Well to each his or her own, but if I owned a D600, I sure as heck wouldn't be using an iPhone or any other phone camera for anything other than the most mundane of shots, like to show the plumber what my current busted up pipe looks like if I cant' describe it to him, etc. I'd at least be taking a Sony RX100 or NEX-3 series around with me.

Filter apps are ok - it is much easier than using the clunky old "Actions" on Photoshop. Saying that, you only really need Pixlr Express and Snapseed.

Art Studio and ProCreate are two exceptionally good apps. LensFlare and Repix offer some great effects - the likes of which you cannot get easily on Photoshop. I like Photoshop Touch also (the ability to send an image from phone to tablet is really good). Filterstorm is powerful but I need practice with the interface. Point is, there is still an opening for a REALLY comprehensive photo manipulation package on tablets. And Apple really should start offering some sophisticated digital pen support.

it is the retro / nostalgic memory of old analogue prints which gives people "delight" in transforming their sharp and colour accurate files into sun-dated chemically decomposing effects. Emotion preferences come from nostalgic memories. Fantasy atmospheres as well.

Brilliant point. You've nailed it. These filters are an easy way for people to share their emotions about a person, place, or thing. After all, the only true measure of a photo is how it makes the viewer feel.

world-class agency photographers have used similar aps and phones to produce published work. the 35mm format in the 1920's relative to large format cameras was equivalent to above phone app relative to 35mm full frame digital today. It's not about the resolution, it's about the expression and composition and subject matter.

Well if resolution is irrelevant, then I guess I should ditch my Sony NEX-C3 and Nikon D3100 and go back to using the 2mp Nikon Coolpix 775 I purchased 10 years ago? I say "no," I say resolution & quality MATTER, and in fact they matter perhaps more than anything else. That's why pros who care about quality have always used tools that deliver it, because quality composition & subject matter by virtue demand it.

Definitely!...Go back and give that old Coolpix a try. You will be amazed at how good the photos still look, especially if you use current software for adjusting sharpness, color, and noise. The tools are so much better now--it's like having a new camera.

Editing camera phone pictures is like putting new tires on a POS car ... it's a waste of time. The real advantage of editing is to make a great image even better ... not to save some junk cell-phone pictures and post them on Instagram.

On Android, Pixlr is pretty amazing as far as image editing, but Camera FV-5 is great at actually taking pics and offering easily configurable options without a million menus. It also offers lossless PNG files, which is a BIG step up from JPG if you do post-processing in Photoshop.

RT was for my wife as she uses it for meetings and spreadsheets; also she hot desks as she manages two shopping malls. She told me it's invaluable to her. I don't particularly use her RT unless just to surf.

I do have photoshop on my win 8 pro tablet but like I said; the one day I decide to leave it at home....

Because some of us were there in 1970 and it was a really great year. Everyone let their emotional defenses down and there was a real feeling that we might be on the verge of a world where peace and love would replace greed and fear, that we'd all lay down our guns and stop killing each other, that creativity would become more valuable than gold, and Dektol would flow like water through the darkrooms of our soul, developing us all into fine-grained, beautifully-shouldered versions of our selves.

Maybe doesn't fit the same class, but I should consider Pixlr Express as the best alternative for Android. It has a HUGE library of filters, canvas and effects, and also sports a very useful array of "more classic' editing options.

There is a simpler version called Pixlr-o-matic, that may better fit in your list.

This is digital photography isn't it? It sure isn't film. dpreview used to be a site that probably was mostly about P&S cameras, and also catered to a niche DSLR market. Now the market has shifted a lot. It is about DSLRs, compact DSLR-like cameras, and smartphones. The P&S camera market has almost completely been replaced by smartphones. That is why dpreview created connect.dpreview.com, which is a subsite of dpreview.com which focuses on a lot on smartphones and photography with it.

For the people that like to respond with a sarcastic 'don't look at the article' if you don't like it, I actually don't look at articles in the Connect panel if I don't like them. However, I clicked through a link in the 'Latest News' panel on DPR.

The link was not in the Connect panel. I don't think the Connect panel has a link to this article.

If they want to mix Connect news with DPR news, a little icon indicating which is which would be appreciated. I can develop the habit of checking the link location before clicking. But the icon would be nice.

Since the panel is on DPR, I also expected the article to be about editing applications. This article is not. Many of these things would be called plug-ins in the world of image editing. These things just don't require a host.

I don't imagine DPR will take any steps to more clearly identify their content. Afterall, they 'made me look' and got a click.

There's a disconnect here. DPR (and other members) thinks we all see the news headlines and go to the links from their home page. My DPR bookmark starts in the forums. I check the "News" by going to the News subhead and looking at the dropdown items, where there is NO mention of "CONNECT".

Also, FWIW, on the forums page, there is a "Connect" section on the right showcasing news items. However, the first item (at the time of me writing this) is about the DXO Mobile Mark thing; this "applications" writeup isn't even mentioned there?

Maybe because it's a silly trend many of us are sick of seeing. What's wrong with a "straight" shot, maybe with just a slight amount of color or such added to it? Instead anymore everyone is jacking saturation & such up to 70 and making everything look totally fake, taking away resolution & quality & calling it an "effect." No thank you.

Most of these applications serve their purpose perfectly: they make everyone's pictures look "vintage". So great. I hear that newspapers started firing their photographers and replacing them by iPhotographers, now these brave new iProfessionals have more tools. Go vintage!

So tired of the "bad SX-70" look. Suppose it's new to generation Z, but I experienced it for real in the analog days- and hated it then! Also- now we have to put up with the same, cliched, desaturated/crossover look in many motion pictures too... ad nauseum. Sigh...

Interesting for people who use their phone as a camera, but I'd love to see an article on new/little known free software for photography enthusiasts. I can personally recommend GIMP, AutoStitch, Light Zone and IrfanView.

I don't know. The effect of the filter brings to mind Jane Fonda in Barbarella. :)

Besides, filter names, like names for shades of paint, are pretty inventive by necessity. You try coming up with names for filters or paints which make actual sense, without getting incredibly long-winded and/or tedious.

If Space Romance was the filter described below (or above, I guess; by JWest, anyway), then I agree it is a poor name. Space Romance should have a swirl of color. Somewhere. In the effect. The icon should be William Shattner.

As far as the 'burnt highlights surrounded by horrific vignetting' effect, names like Subway Tunnel, Remove Sunglasses, or Check Headlights makes more sense. Three new names. Easy peasy.

Lol, exactly my thoughts. When I read the title I thought "I must have those, really must?" I'm getting tired of media telling people that they must have or do something completely non-essential for life. Although in DPR's case I recognise they do it at least half tongue-in-cheek. I hope so anyway.

I agree. I thought the comment was hilarious. Are they telling me I also have to go buy a new phone, since mine only runs iOS?? As things stand, I can't run 4 of these Must Have apps. I feel I've missed the boat.

SIDE NOTE TO THE REVIEWER, who wrote, "If you're like me, you're getting sick of Snapseed's filter package"... No, we're not all like you.

yea, only getting any of these effects done in photoshop takes you 10 times as much time, and... you know: teenagers these days don't have much time left between texting and facebooking (if that's a word).